Comparing data of different survey methods for sustainable wildlife management in hunting areas: the case of Tarangire–Manyara ecosystem, northern Tanzania

Abstract

Cost-benefit considerations of wildlife monitoring are essential, particularly, in areas outside national park boundaries, where resources for conducting wildlife censuses are scarce, but that, at the same time, are subject to high pressure for wildlife utilization, such as hunting. Large mammal survey data from various sources were collated and analyzed to investigate which methods are best suited for monitoring purposes at low cost in the Tarangire-Manyara ecosystem, northern Tanzania. Our results indicate that primary data (from aerial and road transects counts) that involve direct species observations, although sometimes very expensive, are required for establishing the status of the target species in terms of density or population size. Concomitantly, secondary data from various sources, such as interviews, hunting quota, and damage reports, obtained over wide areas and over longer periods of time, can provide important information on presence/absence and distribution of species within an area. In addition, the study revealed that hunting quotas set did not correlate with species abundance/numbers from the primary data surveys for most of the large mammals hunted within the ecosystem. For a better conservation and management of wildlife, in particular with respect to the forthcoming formation of Wildlife Management Areas, we propose an integrated approach to wildlife monitoring using primary and secondary data sources through the involvement of local people's knowledge.

Smallholder Farms as Stepping Stone Corridors for Crop-Raiding Elephant in Northern Tanzania: Integration of Bayesian Expert System and Network Simulator

“…We applied the Gaussian kernel density function on the predicted corridors to generate the corridor density maps (Landguth et al 2012) and display the corridors most likely used by elephant. An independent dataset of elephant occurrence was collected between 1996 and 2001 during a previous project (Oikos 2002;Msoffe et al 2007) and used in this study to confirm elephant presence along the simulated corridors. The dataset consisted of geo-referenced presence/absence data collected during participatory land use planning activities in Lolkisale and Loborsoit A, as well as interviews with farmers and hunters.…”

“…The dataset consisted of geo-referenced presence/absence data collected during participatory land use planning activities in Lolkisale and Loborsoit A, as well as interviews with farmers and hunters. A detailed description of the dataset is given by Msoffe et al (2007). The GIS layers were obtained from a Global Environment Facility project (see Pittiglio et al 2012), re-projected to the UTM zone 37, Spheroid Clarke 1880, Datum Arc 1960, and re-sampled (with the nearest neighbor method) to 30 9 30 m. Subsequently, spatial analysis was performed in ArcGIS 9.3 (ESRI) and statistical analysis in SPSS 16.0.1.…”

“…The UNIversal CORridor network simulator (UNICOR; Landguth et al 2012) was used to predict four alternative categories of ''daily refuge-to-crop raid corridors'' along: (1) footpaths, (2) dry river beds, (3) stepping stone farms, and (4) ''control corridors''; the latter based on proximity to refuges and following trajectories of low relief. An independent dataset of elephant presence (Msoffe et al 2007) was used to validate the simulated corridors. We believe that this is the first study demonstrating the corridor hypothesis with crop raiding, and in particular the effect of stepping stone farms on elephant movement behavior.…”

Caracterización de la comunidad de mamíferos de un área remota del sur de Chile mediante el uso combinado de metodologías

“…Algunos autores han sugerido que las encuestas, aunque dan una buena idea de la presencia de las especies de mamíferos, no permiten estimar la abundancia de las mismas (Msoffe et al 2007). Esto se debe en gran medida, a que pueden existir sesgos asociados al conocimiento de las especies.…”

“…Además, nuestros resultados sugieren que para determinar adecuadamente la abundancia y distribución de las especies en áreas remotas, como Huinay, se debería utilizar una aproximación jerárquica, como ya se ha sugerido previamente en otras zonas muy diferentes (e.g. Parques Nacionales de Tanzania; Msoffe et al 2007). De este modo, las entrevistas a gente de la zona servirían de punto de partida para conocer la presencia de las especies así como para determinar la falta de información existente sobre especies concretas.…”